Role

Emma is a Senior Lecturer specialising in the teaching of litigation, dispute management and professional legal skills. Her main research specialisms are public inquires and inquests. Emma’s role includes curriculum course development and design for vocational and practitioner courses.

Emma’s focus is on bridging the gap between legal academia and practice. She works closely with leading solicitors, barristers and members of the judiciary to enhance curriculum design, write academic and practitioner publications and on research projects.

Emma is the Course Leader for the Freshfields LLM in Environmental, Planning and Regulatory Law, a bespoke academic and skills masters course for Freshfields Associates. Emma is also the Nottingham Law School Relationship Manager for the Visiting and Honorary Professors Faculty and a member of the Nottingham Law School Employers' Advisory Board.

Career overview

Prior to joining Nottingham Law School, Emma spent 12 years as a solicitor in commercial practice in the fields of environmental law, commercial litigation and public inquiries. Her work included heading up a team of specialist civil environmental lawyers dealing with multimillion pound disputes and working on the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday.

During her time at Nottingham Law School, Emma has taught on the GDL, LPC, BPTC and LLM programmes. She has been a reviewer and assessor for the SRA's innovative Work Based Learning pilot, a scheme that enables LPC graduates to qualify as solicitors outside the training contract regime.

Emma works with a team of lawyers dedicated to maintaining links with practice and practitioners, which ensures that Nottingham Law School programmes are constantly developed and enhanced to reflect current best practice.

Research areas

Emma’s current projects include working with leading legal practitioners on projects relating to pubic inquiry procedure and on how the use of digital technology is changing the nature of legal practice. She is also working with coroners and legal practitioners to look at ways to support unrepresented participants at inquests.

External activity

Emma is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Publications

IRETON, E., 2016. The ministerial power to set up a public inquiry: issues of transparency and accountability. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly NILQ 67(2): 209–29

IRETON, E., 2015. Waiting for Chilcot: are threats from families and politicians really the answer? The Conversation.